以下是我在2017年 “不忘初心，努力在当下”北外网院杯征文比赛中荣获第二名的获奖征文。
The First Day of the Rest of My Life
The title is a translation from a Spanish song, El Primer Día del Resto de mi Vida. Yes, for me, each day is the first day of the rest of my life. One should not dwell in the past, no matter it is a success or failure. We all make mistakes as we grow up and regret many things we have done or not done. But all those are part of life. When a tree grows, it enjoys warm sunshine and cool breeze in summer, but it also have to endure freezing winter and storm. This is the way a tree is supposed to live its life, not be put in a greenhouse and sheltered from all the elements of the world. It may be well protected, but it will never experience what real life and authentic living mean. One should not lost himself or herself in daydreaming about the future either; the future will yield to us what we hoped for and offer us opportunities that we desired, but we have to prepare ourselves and make sure we have enough courage, strengthen and wisdom to recognize and size those opportunities and not let them pass us by when they come. The past is dead and the future is uncertain, what we can grasp is now. Hold each moment tightly and live it to the fullest.
Back when I was in school, I dreaded studying English. It feels like a chore of memorizing a never-ending word list and staring blankly at testing papers telling me to choose the correct answer from A, B, C and D, a task which seems too difficult to undertake.
But after I left school and started working, I realized English is a critical skill to be mastered not only for excelling in my job, but also for expanding my mind-set. On the business side, mastering English enabled me to communicate directly with foreign English-speaking customers and sell goods and services directly to them. On the spiritual side, there is an ocean of knowledge and literature written in another language besides Chinese, English. I can now read foreign course books, novels, newspapers directly in their original English with the aid of a dictionary to look up some unknown words here and there.
My journey of learning English taught me that what enable one to learn a language is not talent, but interest and persistence. Interest is not enough, it can only draw you to one subject, but persistence is what keeps you working at it.
I still remember how I set goal of reading through the full set of Sherlock Holmes novels in its original English text and the tremendous satisfaction I felt when that goal is achieved. Whenever I encountered a new word, I will stop and look it up in a dictionary. By doing this, reading one word, one sentence, one paragraph and one story after another, I finished reading the full set of Sherlock Homes and dozens of other English books. Not only my English was improved, I also gained tremendous satisfaction from readying those books. What a fun journey!
Each sentence I read, each new word I accumulated became one part of me and enabled me to learn more and study more.
In this society, besides English, another area that is growing exponentially is technology, especially information technology and computer science. I was interest in computer back in junior high school, but can’t afford to buy one until I was in college. My major in college is business English, not computer science that I wanted to study. After graduating from college, I thought I would never get another chance of studying this subject. But luckily, I found Bewail Online, it opened a door for me to realize my goal.
Now, people studying outside of school don’t have to take many exams assigned from school, but challenges do exit. Take myself as an example, during the day, I have to work from 8AM to 5 PM, and after going home, I have to reserve time aside for my little kid and putting him to bed before I can take some time off to do some studying. For me, time is limited; I have to learn to manage my time efficiently.
Information technology enables us to learn everywhere. With a smart phone, we can take books, videos and other learning materials along with us to go and study anywhere.
Time is scattered, one has to learn to harness time like a farmer harvesting wheat. Waiting for an elevator to come, queuing in line for the bus and commuting to the workplace and back, all the scattered time can be utilized to learn.
So, even though a man working to support his family has limited time, he can’t complain that he has no time at all for studying.
Studying can improve one’s skills and make him or her more valuable in the workplace. Studying can also improve one’s mind.
Now, besides studying courses online, I also am studying Spanish as a hobby. Computer science and information technology are so advanced today that they make learning a foreign language much easier than before. Tons of audio, video and text materials of one’s chosen language can be found online and dictionaries are more accessible than before. Back in my school days, sometimes I have to spend more than one minute to flip through a paper dictionary to look up a new word, but now, I only need to spend a few seconds to type the new word out or point to the new word with a mouse, then voila, its definitions show up on the screen. Not to mention other things, the accessible dictionary along enables one to master a language quicker than before.
Whether one is rich or poor, we human beings all have limited time on earth. Everyone should treasure each moment and live it well and plan and work out a fantastic journey for oneself. I thank and appreciate Beiwai Online’s companion on my journey.
原文链接见http://www.beiwaionline.com/server/zdhd/zwsix/er/webinfo/1519697202753828.htm
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